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Election of 1860 Results
Explanation of the Source: The Election of 1860 was a very complicated election. The Nation was split between North and
South; between Democrats in the South and the North; the Republicans in the free states and
none in the Southern states. This election was the catalyst event that forced the nation to split.
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Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
By: Abraham Lincoln
Date: March 4, 1861
Explanation of the Source: After Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States; states in the Deep South declared
their independence. In his first Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln focused on shoring up his support in
the North without further alienating the South, where he was almost universally hated or feared.
“I consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the
extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins me, that the laws of the
Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part,
and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall
withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be
regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend
and maintain itself.”
“In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be
forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond
what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among
the people anywhere....”
“Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by
constitutional checks and limitations, and always charging easily with deliberate changes of popular
opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of
necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a
permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or
despotism in some form is all that is left....”
“One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other
believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive
slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as
well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people
imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in
both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured, and it would be worse
in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly
suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now
only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.”
“Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each
other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of
the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country cannot do this.
Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain
on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon
you....”
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of
civil war. I promise, that the Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being
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yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I
shall have the most solemn one to "'preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may
have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet
swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
Georgia Secession
Developed by the Georgia Legislature
Date: January 29, 1861
Explanation of the Source: After Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States; states in the Deep South declared their
independence. The statement below is basically Georgia’s reasoning to break away from the United States.
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the
United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the
separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our
non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have
endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently
refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and
by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment
of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued
with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our
people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual
civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to
change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from
further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and
demonstrated the necessity of separation.
Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of
our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large
majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after
an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they
shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political
organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will
fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the
Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an
anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political
heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of
protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-
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slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of
slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution...”
Lincoln’s Assurances
By: Abraham Lincoln
Date: Dec. 22, 1860
Explanation of the Source: The following is the text of a letter from Abraham Lincoln to the future Confederate Vice-President,
Alexander Stephens. Lincoln and Stephens had known each other when both were Whig Congressmen in
the late 1840's.
“Hon. A. H. Stephens-My dear Sir
Your obliging answer to my short note is just received, and for which please accept my thanks. I fully
appreciate the present peril the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on me.
Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly or
indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you,
as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.
The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington. I suppose,
however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think
slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial
difference between us. Yours very truly
A. Lincoln”